The Idea of Continental Union: Agitation for the Annexation of Canada to the United States, 1849-1893

The idea of Canadian-American union has
persisted since 1775, and many people have worked to achieve
such a goal. This study proposes to describe and analyze their
efforts. It is not a definitive work, tracing the annexation movement in meticulous detail and year by year. Though it necessarily deals with the general history of Canada and the United
States as background, it will not pretend a reinterpretation of
those histories except insofar as the agitation for continental
union throws a new light of explanation upon them. Its purpose,
then, is to present in short compass an overview of the agitation
for political union and its basic characteristics--its origins, areas
of concentration, and failures--by studying the three periods of
its greatest intensity. Earlier books, dealing primarily with other
subjects, have scattered and usually incidental references to
annexation. This is the only attempt to focus primarily upon
that movement and to carry the story of its career through four
and a half decades.

The American attempts to wrest Canada from Great Britain
during the Revolution and the War of 1812 receive only passing
notice in this study, as does annexation activity during the three
decades following the Treaty of Ghent. Shortly after the
colonies which now form the provinces of the Dominion
achieved a large measure of self-government in the late 1840's,
agitation arose in their midst to gain admission to the American
Union, to effect a marriage by agreement. That was the real
beginning of what is known as the continental union movement.
From that point this book carries the story to 1893, when
persistent failure and growing Canadian nationalism finally
settled the question. The so-called agitation of 1911 is not
included because it was almost entirely contrived and insincere,

Notes for this page

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.comPublication information:
Book title: The Idea of Continental Union:Agitation for the Annexation of Canada to the United States, 1849-1893.
Contributors: Donald Frederic Warner - Author.
Publisher: University of Kentucky Press.
Place of publication: Lexington, KY.
Publication year: 1960.
Page number: v.

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